In the latest and perhaps most astonishing display of the tar sands industry’s attacks on science and our democracy, the government of Alberta has made plans to initiate a large-scale wolf slaughter to provide cover for the destruction wrought by the industrialization of the boreal forest ecosystem.

In the coming years, an anticipated 6,000 wolves will be gunned down from helicopters above, or killed by poison strychnine bait planted deep in the forest. Biologists and other experts say the cull is misguided, and that their studies have been ignored or suppressed. Worse, they warn that although the government is framing the wolf cull as a temporary measure, it has no foreseeable end.

Recently the Alberta government proposed a plan to open this brutal form of 'wildlife management' to other regions, suggesting an extensive and costly cull in place of more responsible industrial development.

This is clear evidence of the fact that Alberta’s tar sands oil is unquestionably conflict oil, despite the propaganda spouted by the “ethical oil” deception campaign. Aside from its disruptive affects on wildlife, tar sands oil is dirty, carbon intensive and energy inefficient from cradle to grave.

And that’s without mentioning the role the tar sands boom has played in Canada’s slide from climate leader to key villain on the international stage. Beyond its environmental consequences, tar sands extraction has negatively affected local tourism and recreation-based economies, impacted public health and torn at the rich fabric of cultural diversity and pride among Albertans and all Canadians.

Behind the Harper administration’s unbounded drive to drown Canada’s reputation in tar sands oil pollution lies the political corruption characteristic of the classic petro-state. Free speech is being oppressed, while respected members of the scientific community claim they are being muzzled, ignored and intimidated.

The wolf cull is ostensibly designed to protect northern Alberta’s woodland caribou, a species that in recent years has become critically threatened. But scientists have ridiculed the plan, saying this sort of ‘wildlife management’ turns the wolf into an innocent scapegoat, while the real culprit – the province’s aggressive timber, oil and gas development – is spared any real scrutiny or accountability.

According to this strategy, caribou and wolf alike fall prey to another kind of predator: multinational corporations.

Sadly, Alberta’s history of covering over regrettable and irresponsible wildlife management runs about as far back as its history of industrial development – a correlation all too evident in the recent caribou recovery charade.

After the ESCC hesitantly listed the caribou species as threatened (a less formidable title than endangered), the Alberta Woodland Caribou Recovery Team was formed. By 2004 the team had developed a thorough working plan to recover caribou populations, making recommendations that covered all sides of the caribou issue, from protecting habitat to minimizing human activity. And each of the team’s recommendations were adopted – but with one surprising exception.

The Alberta government refused to consent to a key recommendation for “a moratorium of resource development allocations in the range areas of caribou populations at immediate risk of extirpation.” This recommendation isn’t asking a lot: just the halt of mineral and timber allocations in specific regions where the caribou were facing complete desolation. But Alberta’s leaders refused to tolerate any setbacks to forestry or oil and gas development.

But nothing explains that twist in the story better than Alberta's staunch fidelity to continued industrial development. And nothing stands to threaten that blind committment more than a band of respected scientists officially recommending a moratorium on certain activities.

Since 2004, Alberta has made no progress on the issue – the tar sands expansion continues with reckless speed while caribou populations continue to decline.

Alberta’s refusal to consider limiting tar sands expansion – even where caribou herds are facing imminent extirpation (localized extinction) – has led to a wholly unscientific alternative: a concerted effort to shift blame onto the wolves.

In the wake of the recovery team’s dispersal, the Alberta government launched a new official ‘multi-stakeholder’ body tasked with overseeing the province’s Caribou Recovery Strategy: the Alberta Caribou Committee. Then Minister of Sustainable Resource Development, pro-hunt David Coutts, formed the ACC to take over the responsibilities of the Recovery Team.

Science Under Attack

The Alberta Caribou Committee (ACC) describes itself as a “community of Government, Industrial, and Academic partners” working to “integrate industrial activities in northern Alberta with the conservation of caribou and caribou habitat.”

This proposed ‘integration’ of conservation and industrial activities, however, means that independent scientific research is directed by heavy-handed industrial interests and a political agenda.

Internationally renowned biologist Paul Paquet describes the shared interest of industry and government in Alberta as a threat to scientific integrity.

“There’s a real lack of independence there and there isn’t even independence of most of the government scientists. Most are in a position where they have to represent a provincial concern rather than a scientific one or they’re compromised in some other way,” Paquet told DeSmogBlog. “Its unfortunate.”

Scientist have found themselves fighting for caribou preservation in an impossible set of circumstances, where industry refuses to slow the pace of timber and tar sands development, and the government facilitates this growth in any way possible.

But perhaps that has something to do with the composition of the ACC.

Who Calls the Shots?

The Alberta Caribou Committee is so heavily dominated by timber, oil and gas interests, their public list of members reads like an industry convention brochure:

With such close steps between industry and the caribou recovery strategy, it's as if industry interests are both calling the shots and pulling the trigger.

This wolf cull seems designed as a concerted effort - at the provincial and federal level - to conceal the cumulative social and environmental impacts of rapid tar sands expansion, keeping the decision-making power in the hands of a small group of industry and government representatives with an embedded industrial agenda.

It appears the government and industry are willing to export Canada's natural resources at whatever cost to our society - and it looks like wolves and caribou just got added to that list of expenses.

The question is, are we willing to pay the steep price of our health and heritage to supply polluting fuels to other countries who don't always share our principles of democracy?

Our previous PM Paul Martin worked very hard for Canada’s First Nations peoples. He backed the Kelowna Accord http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelowna_Accord , and currently he’s running the Martin Aboriginal Initiative http://mai-iam.ca/ out of his own pocket.

In contrast Harper has labeled First Nations, “Adversaries”, and is planning to ram rod a pipe line through their lands no matter what.

Immoral, unethical, and a crime against nature.
Wildlife “management’ is a farce.
The wolf kill defies the science.
If government scientists and wildlife officers had any integrity, they would resign en masse.
The corruption extends beyond industry and government to the scientific community itself.
Independent university scientists co-operate with the government on wolf control:
“Senseless slaughter of wolves”
www.conservationnw.org/pressroom/press-clips/senseless-slaughter-of-wolves
The irony is that wolf culls don’t even work.
The wolves just up their reproduction rates in balance with available resources.
Killing wolves and clearcuts increases the deer population, which outcompetes caribou.
How do these people look themselves in the mirror?

Yes, oilman, I think you’ve got the gist of ethical oil. It’s okay to produce tar sands under unethical conditions as long as we agree with the premise that Canada is the ‘boy scout’ of the world and would never in a million gazillion years ever do anything to hurt the environment or treat people unfairly.

I’m not sure if I quite follow the logic of the story though. Wolves need to be killed because the tar sands are negatively affecting caribou heards? And since wolves prey on caribou, the government is worried about the caribou herds, but not the wolves? Why? Since when does the government care about any wildlife? Why doesn’t the government just kill all the caribou and all the wolves and any other creatures that get in the way of the tar sands and be done with it?

Well… the oil sands are essentially a pit mine the size of Florida. They aren’t doing it all at once, but piecemeal. The result is declining territory for the Caribou.

Declining territory for Caribou = declining numbers of Caribou.

Solution? Kill those dastardly wolves who eat Caribou.

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE

Features

Bernadette Demientieff is the Executive Director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, a group pressuring BP to pledge not to drill the community's sacred lands.

Later this month, I’m going to travel halfway around the world from my home in Alaska to Aberdeen, Scotland to speak at BP’s annual shareholder meeting. I plan to share with the oil company’s executives how important the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is to my people and urge them not to pursue destructive oil drilling or exploration in our...